Från redaktören : Det redaktionella arbetet

Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv

Sociologförbundet har ordet

Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv

Framväxten av sociala rörelsers globala politik

The emergence of social movements’ global politics Globalization not only transforms capital, media and technology, but also creates conditions for global politics, beyond ”international politics”. New transnational public arenas emerge, where a broad range of actors articulate demands and interests. A globalized political infrastructure arise from the combination of the (1) internal transnational mobilization within two opposing global networks: movements’ World Social Forum and political economy elites’ World Economic Forum; and a global connection with (2) regular dramatic street protests during multilateral regime summits; and (3) a permanent and virtual network of information communication technology that enables new forms of action, organization and mobilization. Together these arenas make participatory and global politics possible for social movements. Regime confrontations are formed by the new global media of ICT in a way that transforms the struggle into a political drama, where activists’ diversity of tactics – The Majority Drama, The Carnival, and The David-Goliath Drama – creates both competition and collaboration. These arenas are only emerging and this new form of global political structure creates both possibilities and problems. Still, a unique potential to democratize politics is created.

Motstånd och stöd : en studie av svenska muslimska församlingar

Opposition and Support: A Study of Swedish Muslim Congregations Anti-Islamic attitudes are deeply rooted in Western Europe, and Muslims have, especially in the post-September 11 context, experienced discrimination and demonization. But how do anti-Islamic attitudes affect practicing Muslims and their congregations? The aim of this study, the first of its kind in Europe, is to present a statistically representative view of how Muslim congregations in Sweden experienced the reactions from the surrounding community. The results of the survey carried out show that according to the representatives of the local congregations (n=105) half of the congregations have experienced opposition from the local community and in 40 percent of the congregations criminal offences have been committed against active Muslims or their places of worship.  This opposition is closely connected with two types of situations: either international occurrences (i.e. terrorist bombings in, for example, London, Madrid) or local events that have emphasized the presence of Islam in the public sphere. A multivariate analysis of the results of the study shows that the strongest opposition has taken place in small municipalities with a large proportion of immigrants. However, opposition does not preclude support. On the contrary, opposition appears to have a mobilizing effect on those who support the right of Muslims to exercise freedom of religion. However, neither opposition nor support are the key factors affecting whether congregations see themselves as established in the local community. The degree of anchorage depends on the demographic composition of the congregation and on the degree of contact that the members have with the surrounding community.

Sociologförbundet har ordet : Utmaningar för den globala sociologin – från Göteborg till Yokohama

Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv

After work : en longitudinell studie i arbetsmiljöns långsiktiga inverkan på sambandet mellan socioekonomisk position och äldres ohälsa

After Work. The long-term effects of work environment on the association between adult socioeconomic position and ill health among the elderly The aim of this study is to analyse the long-term effects of work environment on the association between adult socioeconomic position (SEP) and six ill health outcomes among the elderly. Data was drawn from the longitudinal Level of Living and the SWEOLD-surveys. The individuals are followed from 1968 to 1992 and from 1981 to 2002 and 2004, combining baseline information regarding SEP and work environment during the period of occupational activity with the ill health outcomes from the follow-up studies. Strongest effects where revealed when controlling for the physical work environment on the association between both measures of SEP and two of the ill health outcomes: musculoskeleta lpain and physical performance. The psychological work environment, however, explained very small parts of the associations. The results, even controlled for SEP, exposed strong direct relations between ill health and psychological work environment and rather strong relations to physical work environment. As socioeconomic position indicates a particular structural position within society it may determine the likelihood of health damaging exposures during the period of occupational activity. This study shows that the effect of work environment significantly affects ill health among the elderly. Hence, the results indicate the importance of taking measures in improving work environment during the labour-market participation period, especially since policy-makers attempt to convince workers to stay longer in the workforce.

Från redaktören : Från Göteborg till Yokohama

Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv

Japanese animation and glocalization of sociology

Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv

Hårda nypor för ett mjukt samhälle? : Om medialisering och rasifiering i utspelspolitikens Sverige

Toughness for a soft society? On medialisation, racialisation and the politics of spin in Sweden In recent years, issues concerning the future of “multicultural Sweden” have become a salient feature in Swedish politics. One important actor in recent years’ debates about the problems confronting “multicultural Sweden” is the Swedish Liberal Party. Since the general election of 2002, the party has gained both publicity and electoral support by focusing the question of “integration of immigrants” in terms of assimilation and intensified demands aimed at the “immigrant Others”. In this article, the party’s recent developments in the area of integration policy is analysed within the framework of two general processes in contemporary politics, the politics of racialisation and the medialisation of politics. The party’s successful interventions in the area of integration policy are built on an intimate as well as complex interplay between racialisation and medialisation. The agenda articulated by the party, further, has several similarities with the agenda of “authoritarian populist” movements throughout Europe.

Akademisk kvalitet, vad är det? : Om utarmningen av den akademiska autonomin

What is academic quality? On the decline of academic autonomy In light of the transformations that universities currently undergo, with Bologna as a keyword, the following questions are put: What ideals lie behind the assessment of academic “excellence” and “quality”? What agents have the ability to define what is good science and education today? These questions are approached through Pierre Bourdieus concept of field. Looking at the development the last decade, traditional academic values, such as the ideal of universal knowledge as (personal and collective) enrichment and the intellectual independence “of all political authority and economic power”, as stated in the Magna Charta Universitatum, seem to have emerged into the shadow of employability, knowledge control, competitiveness, and economic benefit. In connection with the formation of concepts such as “the knowledge society” and “knowledge based economies” the university has received a somewhat different and more central role in society. The university has come to take the role more of a knowledge producing enterprise clearly directed towards the surrounding society. There are higher demands on academic knowledge to contribute to economic, regional or national development and competitiveness. When the university is regarded as a knowledge company whose task is to accoun tfor the requests of the students, the labour market, and the business world it undertakes to follow trends and short term social phases rather than to critically examine them, which has been a traditional task for the university. If the academic work is guided by the market economical principle, that the client requests decide what quality is, instead of the experts on the academic field themselves (i.e. the scientists,) it is obviously not scientific ideals that constitute the criteria for what is good science and education.

Från redaktören : Politisk höst

Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv

Sociologförbundet har ordet

Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv

Kung slår dam : våldsforskningsmetodologi i ett våldsamt jämställt Sverige

King captures queen. Methodology in research on violence in violently equal Sweden Research and debate on violence against women in a Swedish context is here discussed from a perspective that focuses on the different understandings and epistemological claims behind existing positions. I crystallize a dominant perspective on violence, centred around fragmentation/deviance, and a challenging feminist understanding, centred around coherence/normality. I relate these understandings to a wider set of methodological choices and epistemological claims within research on violence against women, captured in what I call a discourse on partner violence (fragmentation) and a feminist discourse on men’s violence against women (coherence). The article also examines the reactions, in media and academic life, that a quantitative study on men’s violence against women in Sweden provoked, Captured queen, men’s violence against women in equal Sweden. A prevalence study (Lundgren et al 2001). By applying a coherent methodological approach, stemming from the feminist discourse on violence against women, the study seems to have placed itself outside what was comprehensible for many voices in the debate (from media and the academic field). I discuss the hostile reactions the study aroused, in relation to its methodology and the above presented conflicting understandings that occupy the research field “violence against women”.

A vocabulary justifying revolutions

Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv

Underkuvade kunskaper och genealogins möjligheter

Subjugated knowledges and the possibilities of genealogy The article explores the possibilities of “voicing” marginalized subjects by analyzing letters written by female mental patients in the beginning of the twentieth century. Following Michel Foucault, genealogy is here used as a means to explore and reclaim subjugated knowledges, i.e. knowledges that have been dismissed, distorted, disqualified and put aside by more powerful and ultimately victorious knowledge claims, in this case the psychiatric discourse. Historically oriented research on madness has often explored medical and cultural discourses and representations, as these correspond to sources that can be easily found in archives. This also means that mental patients’ own narratives and texts have been more difficult to trace, partly due to the paucity of available documentation. Herein lies a challenge: how can we represent these subjects, whose stories are inevitably always already captured and filtered by authorities, without portraying them either as passive victims or reducing them to effects of power networks? The article thus ponders research ethics, the question of Otherness and the power of representations. The difficulties in representing female patients’ “own”voices are discussed, yet the article points to the necessity of taking voices that are simultaneously in the margins and in the centre of more powerful discourses, seriously as objects of knowledge. The article argues that “the insurrection of subjugated knowledges”, i.e. bringing back such knowledges as represented here by mental patients’ narratives, opens us otherpossibilities of knowledge. Hence, mental patients’ letters are seen as important “fractures” in the official and legitimized knowledge of madness, offering alternative understandings of both committed individuals and the psychiatric discourse itself.